Word: secularist
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...Solitude of Emperors by David Davidar is the more straightforward of the two. Davidar's narrator Vijay, a journalist, recounts the story of the first few years of his career working for the Indian Secularist, a tiny journal in Mumbai. After the bloody anti-Muslim riots of 1992, Vijay is sent by his editor to a mountain tea town where a religious shrine threatens to become the rallying point for another bout of violence. The novel is both artful rhetoric and page-turning thriller. Davidar, the former head of publishing giant Penguin's India operations (and now Penguin...
...SECULARIST...
...raised questions about the role of women in this predominantly Muslim society. "We always knew that the AKP wanted to lift the ban on headscarves, but democracy is as much about style as it is about institutions. It would be better if [Prime Minister Erdogan] was less dismissive of secularist concerns in this country," Hakan Altinay, head of the Open Society Institute, a pro-democracy group in Istanbul, told TIME. Lifting the ban may be a good idea, he said, but should be combined with a broader effort to liberalize other parts of the constitution, including Turkey's draconian speech...
...been widely criticized as excessive while also serving as a useful rallying cry for conservative Muslims. Any change would not take place before next spring, at the earliest, but the call forms part of a broader challenge by the current government and its supporters to Turkey's secularist status quo. Speaking to reporters, Erdogan said that the university boards that prevent women in headscarves from studying had no place in students' wardrobes. "It's about freedoms," he said...
...Some traditional secularists disagree, however, doubting whether lifting the ban is wise. "I used to be in favor of allowing headscarves in universities," Ertugrul Ozkok, editor in chief of the influential Hurriyet daily wrote today. "But after the [July 22] elections I have my doubts. Can we be sure that women in Anatolian universities will be able to resist the social pressure to cover up?" The editor, whose newspaper has traditionally supported secularist laws, said he was worried about vigilantes singling out women who did not cover their hair...